Exceptional Employees

Vision 2025 / Our Vision for 2025 / Exceptional Employees

Empowered, knowledgeable, compassionate, and engaged employees are proud to contribute in a flexible and rewarding environment

In 2025, we attract top talent and support our employees through active and continuous engagement, empowerment to make decisions that best serve our customers, and developmental opportunities that span the government. We also offer dynamic career paths and multiple opportunities for professional growth. Through diverse and innovative ways, we support our employees in achieving their career goals. We offer our employees highly flexible workplace options, enabling them to create an ideal work-life balance.

Through their compassion and dedication, our employees reflect the “heart of the agency,” providing a high-quality, personalized customer experience to our customers. Our talented workforce includes employees who serve customers directly on the front line, as well as those in supporting roles. We are empowered, knowledgeable, and equipped to meet our customers' needs at the first point of contact. Direct and personal conversations have always been at the center of our service delivery model and are what make our agency and our employees unique.

Attracting and Cultivating Top Talent
We directly recruit and hire compassionate people who are drawn to public service and have a desire to improve the lives of our customers. As an employer of choice, we attract and retain employees who are committed to our mission, reflect the full diversity of the public we serve, are connected to their local communities, and are dedicated to providing quality customer service. We place a high priority on career growth and developing future leaders. We grow our employees' expertise and skillsets through targeted training that provides opportunities for personal and professional advancement. We access additional talented people through collaborations with universities, internship programs, inter-agency partnerships, and agency-wide developmental and rotational programs.
Employee Development
Our employees have access to a wide range of professional development opportunities. Our results-based performance management system rewards high performance and incorporates well-defined and clearly-communicated standards for success. Employees receive meaningful individualized feedback on a continual basis to guide their development. Our employee-centered programs foster skills development and facilitate knowledge transfer. We assess training needs at the organizational level as well as the individual level, as our programs continually improve. Our training programs are dynamic, address critical skill gaps, and are crafted and adjusted according to our vision.
Employee Engagement
Our employees' sense of purpose is evident in their display of dedication, persistence, and effort in their work, and they exhibit an overall attachment to our organization and its mission. Our employees are proud to be members of an organization that serves our customers' needs and is innovative, and offers a work environment where individual differences are valued and employees are treated with dignity and respect. Employees see their work more as a "calling" than a job. Our employees are committed to customer service throughout their careers and we value their growth in this mission. We consistently seek their input and ideas on service and program innovation. We offer an environment of high trust, where employees feel they are an integral part of the agency's operations, policy development, and decision-making. Regardless of their location or job title, our employees unite behind a common goal: to improve the lives of our customers.
Employee Empowerment
Our dedicated employees are able to balance career and life needs and goals. They are empowered to make timely decisions while serving external and internal customers, and have opportunities to participate in cross-government initiatives. Our streamlined business processes remove unnecessary hand-offs and truly facilitate "one-stop-service." Employees are able to grow as experts in handling complex customer situations with the support of innovative technologies, such as online services and a customer-centric view. Access to advanced portable technologies provides flexibility to our employees, empowering them to serve Social Security customers from various locations in a way that accommodates their personal lives.
Decision Support Tools
Employees are equipped with effective tools and resources providing direct access to accurate information and the ability to provide a superior customer experience in real-time. Seamlessly integrated systems enable employees to see a single view of customer information to address their needs in an accurate and timely manner. Our flexible and automated tools are designed to support Social Security programs by integrating policy, process, and data into our systems to support our knowledgeable employees. Innovative technologies reduce the margin for human error and support the employee with real-time, accurate information. Knowledge-sharing is institutionalized across the organization to retain crucial knowledge when employees make career changes.

"Social Security employees are exceptional public servants and need a career path for professional growth and exciting new opportunities."
- Office of Disability Adjudication and Review Forum Union Officials

"SSA should work cooperatively with labor at all levels of the agency. We are eager to work with SSA to enhance customer service to ensure full customer choice."
- National Council of SSA Field Operations Locals